And Sometimes The Best People Don't Get A Happy Ending
by FirexSandForevea
Summary: /watch?v POngPl7X3Ho this scene but bethan dt: bennyweirlover17 (i hope you like this lol) (and sorry it took like a week to write, i'm a slow writer)


"Look, Ethan, that cloud looks like a baby!" Benny exclaimed excitedly to his best friend who was laying on the grass beside him. He lifted his arm from beneath his head to point at the cloud he was referring to. "That one, E."

Ethan looked at the older boy whose entire body was entranced in the baby-cloud with a smile on his face. Benny's clothing was nearly identical with Ethan's: a brown shirt with long sleeves that was 10 sizes too big and pants that didn't reach his ankles. And while Ethans clothes fit perfectly fine, he still wasn't happy. Perhaps it was because Benny wasn't either(but really, is that true? Unlikely, if the big smile reaching both his ears was something to go off by) or perhaps it was because they only had two outfits that they had to switch between everyday.

And yet, when he thought of Benny he thought of autumn, when he thought of Benny he thought of _warmth_ , when he thought of Benny he thought of long car rides at nighttime. Because Benny was that kind of person where their happiness is contagious and their emotions are _your_ emotions, because Benny was that kind of person where all you can think about when you are around them is ' _I wonder what is in their head'_ , and finally because Benny is that kind of person who loves you even when you can't find the strength to love yourself.

Hanging out with Benny like this was a surreal experience; no one else, just Ethan and Benny with the clouds and hills and the apples on the tree that was hanging above them. "Yeah, Benny, I see it." But something in his voice must've been off because Benny stopped looking at the cloud and looked at the boy beside him, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth pursed into a straight line. He looked… concerned.

"You alright, E?" And maybe Ethan made a face that said ' _It's a long story'_ because Benny shifted his weight onto his side and propped his head up by one hand and Ethan copied him. Benny used his other hand to rest it on the side of Ethan's face. Ethan shifted a little closer, never moving his eyes from Bennys and sighed.

Ethans eyes moved everywhere over Bennys calm face but for once it didn't calm him down. "Benny, we're wasting our lives right now. We're teenagers, for God's sake, and we haven't even been to a city or a… club, or anything teenagers do! Our elders have just taught us to be adults in teenagers bodies and I'm not happy with it! We need to-" His voice was getting higher, indicating he was about to start screaming, so Benny cut him off.

"I want to propose an idea to you before you start screaming," Benny said, "so please listen. Alright, I propose that we leave. Just us two, we grab our very few belongings and leave! We don't have anything here-" Benny was getting excited and lifted his hand off Ethans face to wave it in the air, as if he was trying to create an illusion.

"False," Ethan interrupted his brown-haired friend, "Jane." And that one word just foiled Bennys plan so he sighed and flopped back down on his back, his hand falling down across his chest. But he had a thought that brought his smile back on his face.

"Listen, Ethan, we can leave her here with the elders. They are enough protection for her, if she even needs any after all because most of the time she's the one saving _us,_ and nothing ever happens." Ethan seemed to debate this in his head before asking on last question.

"Why can't we take her with us?"

Benny sighed. _This is it. This is when I tell him._ "She can't come with us because… well, I kind of wanted it to be just us because… Okay let me start again. Ethan, I like you… not platonically. I want us to run away…. Please." Ethan smiled and wrapped his arms around Benny's neck, their noses touching and their eyes staring at each other. _Since he likes me and I like him, this will be okay._ Ethan closed his eyes and softly pressed his lips against Bennys before backing away and looking into Bennys eyes once again to see if what he did was okay.

But instead of reassuring Ethan, Benny rolled them over so that Ethan was on the bottom and Benny kissed him again and again and again, harder every time and wider smiles everytime. "So, is that a yes?" Benny asked, hoping that Ethan would agree.

But before Ethan could say anything, a loud noise sounded like it was coming towards their community. They both looked over to the houses and saw a huge group of intruders coming towards them on horses. Benny and Ethan looked at each other (one thought passed between both their minds: ' _Jane'_ ) for a split second before running as fast as they could towards their community to save Jane and warn the others if they had not heard the intruders yet.

By the time they got there (and out of the both of them, Ethan only fell once) the community was already being ambushed. They shared one last kiss before running to get find Jane and _get out of there, fast_. They both searched but Ethan found his sister first and looked around to find Benny, but alas he couldn't. _There's no time for this,_ Ethan thought before praying to God that Benny would be alright.

"Listen, Jane, we're going to run past the river up to that hill and keep running until the community is out of sight! Fast!" Jane shook her head but all she heard was 'run' and 'fast' because Ethan was talking to fast. They began to run, dodging falling tents and horses.

Benny saw them running away and was about to go after them when a man who had fallen off his horse fell on top of him. But it seemed that the man was no longer confident without his horse because he took one look at Benny and fled in terror (really, Benny was not buff or really even terrifying but maybe in the midst of battle he looked scary). Benny got up and looked around frantically, searching for Ethan and Jane. He saw them running away and a grin spread across his face - until be realized they were running right towards a group of maybe four men with guns.

"ETHAN! JANE! STOP!" He tried to warn them but they were running too fast and the wind was too loud that they couldn't hear him. He ran as fast as he could towards them but no matter how fast he ran, he could not keep up with them. He halted when he saw Ethan and Jane stop in their tracks as well.

Ethan and Jane did not see the men until it was too late. Ethan violently pushed Jane behind him but the frontman shot him in the leg and he fell over, knocking Jane into the river. She tried to save herself by latching her hand onto Ethans shirt but all she did was drag them both into the river.

"No!" Benny shouted and continued running. It seemed like the rest of the men did not expect any gun to _actually_ be shot, because they ran away as fast as they could. Ethan, being unable to move his leg, was pushed further down the stream, but Jane was able to latch her arms onto a rock. She looked pleadingly at Benny as the man was about shoot her, but Benny pushed him off his horse and into the river where he hit his head and fell unconscious, following the stream towards the end. "I'm sorry," Benny whispered to Jane before running towards Ethan and leaving her there.

"Benny! Please!" She kept screaming please but there was nothing that was going to convince Benny to turn around. At this point, she knew Benny was not turning around and cursed ' _love'_ for allowing her to die. "Please, please, please…"

Benny was running, running as fast as he could to catch up with the flow that was carrying Ethan. "Benny! Please save me!" Ethan kept repeating but Benny could not reply unless he wanted to run slower, and he did not. He occasionally turned his head to look at Ethan, but his ultimate goal was to get to this certain rock that was jutting out from the edge of the mountain. As soon as the rock was in Bennys gait distance, he took one fantastical leap onto the rock and used his running start to jump into the water full-force.

The water was cold, so very very cold. _Wow, imagine how Ethan must feel,_ Benny thought. _Ethan!_ He immediately looked around to find Ethan. He could not see much of the river because a rock was blocking it, but as soon as he passed the rock, Ethan was in his vision again. He started to swim as fast as he could and reached Ethan. He hauled Ethan onto his back and tried to turn around and get out of the water but the tide was too strong. Benny tried and tried to go forward but the tide kept pulling him back. He lost his footing when a rock dug into his foot and he began to bleed.

They began to move down the stream, Ethan hanging onto Bennys back for dear life, one side of his face against Benny and his legs around Benny's torso. His eyes were closed and he was whimpering.

They had both began to accept that they were going to die, but when Benny looked back at Ethan, he noticed it looked like the water was dropping off. It didn't register in his mind at first but he then realized they were going to fall down a waterfall and by how it looked, a _big_ waterfall. Ethan hadn't noticed yet but when he opened his eyes he saw Bennys face, contorted into a concerned look. He looked behind him, his head moving slow because he already had an idea of what he was going to see.

But Ethan didn't have the time to turn his head before they were falling.

If Benny had to explain falling down, he would say it felt like he was floating. Well, at first it was painful, his stomach in his chest and his brain freaking out in his head. But as soon as he accepted his death, he felt the mist on his face and his arms and his ankles. He closed his eyes and imagined he was flying with Ethan.

Benny was sad that he'd never see Ethan again.

But when he hit the water, it wasn't as bad as he'd thought. He had thought that the second he hit the water, all his bones would break. That wasn't what happened, maybe the waterfall had looked and felt long but wasn't actually long enough to kill him. Benny opened his eyes and saw a log lodged in the ground around five yards away from him.

This meant two things: one, he could stop there to catch his breath and two, it wasn't too deep (or the log was really long, but Benny isn't a pessimist). As soon as he got there, he slumped against the log closed his eyes, his heavy breathing and the sound of the waterfall the only things he could hear. When he opened his eyes again, he noticed Ethan washed ashore, not moving even an inch. Maybe he was too far to see, but it looked like Ethan wasn't breathing.

This got him to move and swim over to the shore (which wasn't actually too far) and the closer he got, he could see that Ethan was in fact breathing. His breaths were fast and short, though, and Benny thought that probably wasn't good. Ethan lifted his head from the ground and opened his eyes, smiling weakly, unable to move anything in his body.

"Benny…." he whispered, Benny barley hearing him. Benny ran his hands through his fr- _boyfriends?_ -iends dark brown hair lovingly and shushed him, told him that he should save him energy for when they leave.

 _I don't think I'm going to leave this place,_ Ethan thought. _Not alive, anyway_. But he didn't say it aloud. His head dropped as he closed his eyes and Bennys hand shot out quickly to softly set down Ethans head, making sure a concussion wasn't on the list of Ethan's injuries.

Benny spent a minute just looking at Ethans body, his stomach coming up and down in short, quick heaves and his legs shivering just slightly, his eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed in pain. _He must be cold_ , Benny thought. He remembered about body heat and walked around Ethan, spooning Ethan and draping his arm around Ethans torso. He let his head lay in the crook of Ethans neck and pulled Ethan just a little closer to him.

Ethan opened his eyes and turned around once again, but this time he kissed Benny. It was long and loving because both of them knew that they would not be able to have this again. As the kiss ended, Ethan looked into Bennys green eyes and smiled. _It's a bit early, but there is no better time than this._ "I love you." He then closed his eyes and let his head down to the floor. His consciousness slipped away.

Whether Ethan had meant it platonically or romantically, Benny wouldn't know, but he could guess he meant it both ways. They had been bestfriends for eleven years and had been pining for each other for years so their love was different. Platonic and romantic are antonyms but perhaps every romantic love has a bit of platonic love in it as well because you cannot love someone fully without knowing what they're like as a friend.

And as Benny fell asleep against Ethan, he whispered to Ethans unconscious body that he loved him too, and that his last thought before unconsciousness was Ethan's brown eyes.

 _ **A Few Hours Later**_

"Benny. Benny." Ethan groaned. "Benny, we need to go see the doctor."

Benny's entire body hurt and his foot was swollen and covered in blood. "Seriously, Benny, you need to get your foot checked out and I was, uh, kinda like, shot in the leg, so…" That woke them up and as they got up, Benny really wished he had some morphine or poppy seeds.

Benny stood up first and helped Ethan up, used one of Ethans arms to put it around his own neck and they limped together back to the community. Luckily, only three people had died and the doctor was still there. Benny's foot was disinfected and wrapped up while Ethan was prepped for surgery.

Looking at Ethans face on the gurney reminded him of when they had fell asleep a few hours ago and remembered that he only replied to Ethans statement while he was asleep and therefore did not hear Benny return The Three Words.

"I love you, Ethan." Benny whispered as he walked into the 'hospital' tent and leaned down, brushed the hair off his forehead, and kissed him.

Ethan smiled.

How could life get better than this?


End file.
